Developer Kit from Sun with UltraSPARC Processor for Linux

Sun Microsystems have announced a Reference Design Kit for the Ultrasparc T2 with an E-ATX board and processor that works with Linux.

The board sized 30.5 x 33 cm is based on the E-ATX form factor. It comes with a full eight-core (1.17GHz) UltraSPARC T2 and includes three PCI Express Cards (x16, x8, x4), a 4GByte Ethernet connection and two USB 2.0 devices. Of course, the board loves Solaris, but it also likes Linux, and a network optimized Carrier Grade Linux from Wind River is expected early 2009. Sun's support website also reports plans for Ubuntu server support. Sun has not yet named a price.

The UltraSPARC T2 processor with eight threads for each of its eight cores (CMT, Chip Multi Threading), first saw the light of day in August 2007. The CPU software source code has been freely available under GPL License since the release of the first generation UltraSPARC T1. The so-called OpenSparc source can be downloaded from Sun's online-platform.

Wind River has been promoting its Carrier Grade Linux Platform for Network Equipment (CGL) since 2002. In April 2008, the embedded specialists announced that they ported their platform to the UltraSPARC T2 processor. Sun's announcement of its RDK states that implementation of Wind River's CGL should be ready in early 2009.

UPDATE:
Suns has announced that the price for the complete package with processor and eight 1GByte RAM will be around $20.000. The board with RAM, $10.000. The Developer Kit is already available in US stores, but without the Carrier Grade Linux from Wind River. Sun informs us that any purchase is subject to agreement between Sun and the developer, which must be presented at purchase. Agreements can be obtained from the authorized dealer.

Related content

After porting its Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) and Workbench developer environment to Sun's multithreading capable UltraSPARC T2 processor, embedded specialist Wind River says that it has laid down the tracks for the development of high-performance network components.

We all know Linux works smoothly on PCs, but the PC’s x86 archictecture is just one of a range of platforms Linux supports. This article gives you a head start with setting up Linux on a Sun SPARC machine.